I

"I've made my decision. I'll never try and make another person happy, and I'll never try to save anyone ever again. My magic is for me and me alone. Heh, guess you're pretty disillusioned with me now, right Mami? Guess we can't fight together anymore, can we? Well, this is it for you and me. Goodbye."

Mami laid awake for a long time that night. Sayaka had seemed pretty drained when she showed up, and practically fell asleep over dinner. Therefore, she was already passed out, lying next to Mami in bed. Her face was buried in a pillow and periodically letting out a loud snore. Mami sighed as she got up for a glass of water.

Her couch wasn't very good for sleeping, so she had offered Sayaka a spot on her own bed. It was large enough that they could both fit without it being weird, but she was finding that Sayaka wasn't exactly a sound sleeper. The snoring isn't really what was keeping her up, though. Truthfully, she had been thinking about Kyoko all night. Even as she had conversed with a tired Sayaka over dinner, thoughts of Kyoko were in the back of her mind.

"Making father happy was the first step to fulfilling my own wish. Because I want to protect everyone's happiness! That's MY wish!" It was hard to imagine that Kyoko as she is now had once said something like that. Those were better days, the days that Mami wished had lasted forever.

Mami poured herself a glass of water from the sink, then stood by a window and watched the dark lamp-lit city streets. It was supposed to be a full moon tonight, but storm clouds were rolling in and blackening the sky. The air smelled of rain, although it hadn't actually started yet. Mami wondered if Kyoko was out there, and hoped she was taking care of herself.

Kyoko's father was once a preacher who started preaching new ideas that the church wasn't too fond of. Therefore, he had been kicked out of the church and Kyoko's family became very poor. Kyoko had strong ideals of justice and fairness in those days, and she believed her father had been mistreated. Therefore, it made sense that she would wish for people to start listening to him again. Unfortunately, her wish backfired, and it ended disastrously.

"I want to protect everyone's happiness! That's MY wish!" If that is what she had actually wished for, would things have ended differently for her?

Mami finished her water and walked back to the room where Sayaka slept. Thunder roared loudly outside, and a flash of lightning lit the room. Mami stood and watched Sayaka sleep. The sound of rain began to slowly patter until it raised into a constant murmur.

Sayaka had wished to heal a boy's Paralysis. Is that the wish she truly wanted, or did she think granting someone else's wish would also grant her own? That's the mistake Kyoko had made, and Mami prayed that it would not be the same for Sayaka...

...Somewhere, on the far south side of the city, Kyoko woke with a start at the sound of the crashing thunder.

"Momo!" She gasped as she sprang out of her sound sleep. She had been dreaming about her little sister. Momo was scared of lightning and would always end up climbing into bed with her on stormy nights. Of course, she was dead now, and that would never happen again.

Kyoko rubbed her eyes and looked around the dark empty room. She shrugged the dream away, and cradled her bag in her arms. She began to reach inside for a snack, only to remember she already drained her supply. She sighed and buried her face into the side of the bag. She closed her eyes and tried to let sleep take her once again.

II

Madoka groaned and wailed with irritation, biting hard onto the cloth gag that was stuffed in her mouth. "Come on! Come on!" she thought vigorously. She slid the knife back and forth across the rope as fast as she could. With the angle her hands were at she couldn't get much force behind it, and being unable to see what she was doing she wasn't sure of her progress.

She buried the side of her face into the mattress and balanced on her knees with her butt high in the air. She thought this position gave her the most leverage. She did not think that it would take this long, she had planned on needing just one quick slice to cut through and free herself. However, she had been sawing away for at least half an hour, all the while fearing that she wasn't actually doing anything. Her heart slowly filled with fear and she started to panic.

Just then, she heard a loud crash and the room flashed with light. She dropped the knife instantly and rolled on top of it to hide it under her body, trying to look as natural as possible. She thought Homura had just come bursting into the room, but realized it was only lightning. Through the gag she let out a frustrated scream and hit her head against the mattress. What was the point of that? She asked herself. The pillow was still out of its pillowcase, so Homura would have known something was up whether she hid the knife or not.

She got the knife back in her hand and rolled onto her side, deciding she might as well try this position now. She bent her wrist and touched the blade to the rope, sliding it up and down lengthways to find where she had been cutting. She felt a clear dip, and it was a small relief to find she had indeed been making some progress. She got back to work, sawing weakly back and forth as best she could, and being careful not to accidentally poke herself in the back.

Then the rain started. As the soft pitter patter got louder and louder she stopped what she was doing. When she had asked Homura to go get a family picture for her, she was honest about wanting that picture, but her true goal was to keep Homura away longer so she would have more time to escape. Would Homura go half way across town in the rain just to get a picture for her? Probably not.

"Stupid rain!" She thought. This was already taking much longer than she thought it would. If Homura only went to the store she could already be on her way back by now. The idea scared her. The worse part is, if she got caught red handed like this, Homura would be on her guard even more than she already was and another opportunity like this wouldn't be easy to come by.

She thought about just stopping this for now, she could slip the knife back into the pillow and wait for a night when she knew Homura would be gone for longer. The idea was tempting. Getting caught was so scary to her that she would take any excuse to just stop with all this. She might have succeeded in talking herself out of it if not for one thing. She had already started cutting the rope, and it was possible Homura would notice. She wished she could actually see what she had done and make a more informed decision, but ultimately she decided she had already come too far. She was either getting out now or never.

She began sawing away again, crying through the gag and praying inside her head. "Break, come on, please just break!"

Finally, she heard a very soft ripping sound, and when she started pulling her body against the bindings she found it was loosening. She was disheartened at first that it wasn't all just coming right off, thinking maybe she needed to cut somewhere else. However, the more she pulled and thrashed her body the looser it got until, finally, her arms broke free.

She raised her arms high in the air and let out a muffled cheer, momentarily forgetting about the gag. She got both hands working at the rope behind her head and pulled the gag out of her mouth as soon as she could, then tossed it onto the floor. The rain poured harder and harder outside. There was another roar of thunder, and lightning flashed. The flash created a slew of random shadows within the room, to which she jumped away from, convinced that one of them had actually been Homura. She held a hand over her racing heart and sighed with relief when she realized that it was just her imagination.

She went for the light switch and then went for her pile of clothes, unbuttoning her pajama and throwing them off in the process. She very quickly selected something better than Pajamas to wear, opting for a long sleeved sweater and a pair of loose fitting pants, not taking time to decide if they matched or not. Her ribbons were laying next to the pile of clothes, she grabbed them and stuffed them into one of the pants pockets without really thinking why she had done that.

Once dressed, which took her only seconds, she grabbed the knife and ran for the door.

III

Homura stopped time and slipped into a book store. The owner held the door half open, preparing to close it and lock up for the night. Once she was out of sight from the front entrance, she resumed time, not wanting to waste too much magic for something like this.

She held out her SoulGem and fed a little bit of power into it, making it bright enough so she could use it as a flashlight. She browsed the manga section and grabbed a few she knew, from past lives, that Madoka would enjoy. When she had a good arm full she went back to the front of the store and found a couple notebooks and some pens. She got a bag from behind the counter and filled it with all her purchases.

From behind the counter she peeked outside to make sure no one could see her, then she transformed out of her Magical Girl uniform and unlocked the front door. Thunder roared, and a flash lit the otherwise dark streets of the city. A cool wind blew Homura's hair, and her face felt a few cold refreshing drops of water.

She looked to the sky, and even though it was night she could see the thick rain clouds forming overhead. The raindrops became more and more consistent as she walked, until it gave way into a full downpour. She went for a small convenience store down the street, hoping to find an umbrella there.

Inside, she found a bucket by the front door filled with umbrellas. She grabbed one, then went to the snack aisle and selected a few more things. She also got a roll of tape from the miscellaneous aisle. She brought all this back to the front counter, opting to actually pay this time.

"Came out of nowhere, didn't it?" said the clerk as he scanned the umbrella and started bagging her other purchases.

"Yes, it sure did."

She paid for her items and left the store, opening the umbrella as she made it outside. She had told Madoka she would go back to her house for something, but it seemed that would be too much trouble because of the weather. She was going to end up going there tomorrow anyway, to deliver Madoka's letter, so she didn't see much point in troubling herself with it now. She was sure Madoka wouldn't mind too much, so she went back to the hotel.

She passed through the lobby, not bothering to try and hide herself. The front desk didn't have anyone behind it, but it usually didn't matter if she just casually strolled by as if she belonged there. She got in the elevator and pushed the button for the top floor. The elevator let out a ring and buzzed as it started to rise.

Homura had thought Madoka was up to something earlier. She didn't know what though. After their struggle, and getting Madoka to agree to come along willingly, Homura had stopped time and quickly snooped around the room. She didn't know what she was looking for, but she checked under the mattress, inside the nightstand, under the bed, and all around it. She had even grabbed the pillows and felt around the outside to see if Madoka had stashed something there. She thought about taking the pillow out of its case and inspecting more thoroughly, but she stopped herself.

When she was done snooping, she went back to where she was originally standing and tried her best to mimic the same pose so Madoka wouldn't realize she had done something. She thought she was successful.

She didn't want to be so untrusting of Madoka. Sure, they were not yet to the point where Madoka could be trusted easily, but if this relationship was going to work she figured she had to start somewhere. Besides, with her power it was impossible for Madoka to stay away from her, or resist her, and surely Madoka knew that. Once she got around to accepting this as a fact, and also accepting her new life for what it was, Homura knew that things would start to get better.

The elevator reached the top floor, and she picked her bags back up. She shifted the food bag into the same hand as the book bag, and reached into her pocket for the room key that she had stolen from the front desk the night before.

She wondered if Madoka would be asleep already? She put the key into the door. She hoped she was awake, she thought it would be nice if they could lay together for a while and read one of the manga she had bought. Well, maybe Madoka was still upset with her and wouldn't be ready for all that yet, but Homura knew they would have that relationship again soon enough. No matter what, in all of Homura's past lives Madoka had eventually gotten close to her. This life wouldn't be any different, and now Homura was going to be able to keep her closer than ever before.

She turned the key and opened the door. Two steps into the hotel room, the bags dropped from her hands. The bedroom door was wide open and the lights were on. Homura ran to the room and gasped when she saw that the bed had nothing but loose ropes laying around on top of it, and with no Madoka to be found. "NO!" She screamed and jumped on the bed, gathering the ropes in her hands as if trying to find some proof that this was all a lie. But how

Then she saw the pillow, lying near the edge of the bed, outside of its pillow case. She grabbed it and inspected it closer. It didn't take her long to find the spot where it had been cut. "So, that's what you were up to. Stupid girl." She walked to the window and put her SoulGem to her eyes to improve her sight. She stuck her head out the window and looked around. With her magic enhanced eyes, she saw a pink hair disappearing around a corner just a few blocks away.


-Atomyst

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